WORKING THE WORD

Activating Your Inheritance in Christ Jesus

Introduction: You Are Not Trying to Get Something — You Already Have It

The greatest problem facing most Christians is not lack of faith in God, but lack of knowledge of what God has already done. They spend their lives praying for things that have already been provided, waiting for something to happen that has already happened, and wondering why God seems slow to act when in reality He has already acted on their behalf. The issue is not God's willingness — it is our ignorance.

The prophet Hosea recorded one of the most sobering diagnoses of the people of God that the Bible contains:

Hosea 4:6  My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

Not destroyed by the enemy's power. Not destroyed by circumstances. Destroyed by lack of knowledge. And the knowledge that is missing is the knowledge of what belongs to you in Christ Jesus. Everything God has done, He has done in Christ. Everything that is yours, is yours in Him. And until you know what is in Christ — and therefore what is in you — you will never live at the level God intends for you.

Part One: Waiting on God — The Exchange That Renews Strength

Isaiah the prophet delivered one of the greatest promises of divine renewal ever spoken to the people of God. It addresses one of the most common experiences of the believer: the exhaustion that comes from fighting battles in your own strength. And it offers a way out:

Isaiah 40:28–31  Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Waiting on the Lord is not passivity. It is an exchange — you surrender your weakness to Him and take His strength in return. The word "renew" carries the picture of a tree that was cut down, seemingly dead and finished, and then suddenly new life rises through the stump again. That is what God does for the one who waits on Him: He brings back the life, restores the vigour, and raises up what the enemy thought he had permanently brought down.

And notice the outcome: they shall mount up with wings as eagles. Eagles do not flap frantically to stay airborne. They catch the thermal currents and rise effortlessly, covering vast distances with minimal strain. God's intention for every believer is not that you exhaust yourself trying to stay above your circumstances. It is that you know how to mount up — to catch the currents of the Spirit and rise above. The Psalmist described this same renewal:

Psalm 103:1–5  Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.

The eagle’s youth renewed. This is the covenant benefit of those who belong to God — not a slow, grinding endurance of difficult circumstances, but a supernatural renewal that restores what was lost and launches you forward with fresh strength.

Part Two: All Things Already Given — Understanding Your Divine Inheritance

The Apostle Peter made a declaration that, if truly grasped, would transform the prayer life and the expectation of every believer. He was not speaking about what God is going to give us someday. He was speaking about what God has already given:

2 Peter 1:3  According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.

All things that pertain to life and godliness — given. Past tense. Completed action. Through the knowledge of Him who called us. This means that the more you know Christ, the more you access what has already been provided. You are not praying for God to release things He is withholding. You are coming into the awareness and appropriation of things that were released at Calvary and deposited into your account at the moment of new birth.

Paul adds another dimension to this inheritance in his letter to the Ephesians. He prays not that God would give the believers something new, but that God would open their eyes to what they already have:

Ephesians 3:14–16  For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.

Strengthened in the inner man. This is where the real work happens. The outer man responds to what is happening in the visible world. The inner man operates on a different reality — the reality of what God has said and done. When the inner man is strong, the outer circumstances lose their power to determine your outcome.

Part Three: Redeemed from the Curse — The Blessing of Abraham Is Yours

The inheritance of the believer is not a vague spiritual blessing with no earthly content. It includes the blessing of Abraham — one of the most comprehensive covenants of provision, protection, fruitfulness, and dominion that God ever established with a human being. And Paul declares that it has come upon us through Jesus Christ:

Galatians 3:13–14  Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

He was made a curse so that the blessing could come to us. Every dimension of the curse — poverty, sickness, defeat, barrenness, failure — was laid on Christ so that every dimension of the blessing — provision, health, victory, fruitfulness, success — could be laid on us. This is the great exchange of the gospel, and it applies to you by virtue of who you are in Christ:

Galatians 3:26–29  For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

You are Abraham's seed. You are heirs according to the promise. Not by natural descent, not by ethnic or cultural background, but by faith in Christ Jesus. What God promised to Abraham belongs to you. Not because you have earned it, but because you are in Christ, and Christ is the seed of Abraham in whom all the promises are yes and amen.

Part Four: The Life Inside You — What Eternal Life Actually Means

One of the most powerful realities that most believers are completely unaware of is the nature of the life that is deposited in their spirit at new birth. It is not merely a religious transformation. It is not merely a change of moral direction. It is the impartation of the very life of God — Zoe, eternal life, the indestructible, disease-defeating, death-overcoming life of the living God — into your spirit. Jesus declared His purpose:

John 10:10  The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

Abundantly. Not barely enough. Not survival-level. Abundantly. And that life is in you right now. Consider the illustration of a plant. A mango tree planted in any environment will produce mangoes. Not because of the soil composition or the weather patterns, but because of the nature of the life inside it. The environment matters, but what matters more is the nature of the life within. In the same way, the eternal life of God in your spirit is more powerful than any hostile environment around you. You have been given the power to condition your environment — not the other way around.

The Psalmist stood in awe of the nature that God has placed in human beings:

Psalm 139:14  I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

Psalm 8:5  For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

Crowned with glory and honour. This is what God thinks of you. This is how He regards the human being made in His image, redeemed by His Son, and indwelt by His Spirit. You are not an accident. You are not a mistake. You are not ordinary. You are fearfully and wonderfully made, and the life of God is in you.

Part Five: You Are a Peculiar People — Know Your Value

Until you know what you have, you cannot live as though you have it. Ignorance of your value is as devastating as not having value at all. The Apostle Peter addressed this directly, giving the church one of the richest descriptions of its identity anywhere in the New Testament:

1 Peter 2:9  But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.

Chosen. Royal. Holy. Peculiar — which means unique, one of a kind, in a class of your own. You are not a copy of something common. You are a specially crafted expression of God’s workmanship, bought at the highest price ever paid: the blood of Jesus Christ. When you understand your value, everything changes. The way you speak, the way you carry yourself, the way you approach situations, the expectations you bring to your prayer life — all of it shifts when you truly know who you are.

Many believers are living at a fraction of what belongs to them, not because God has withheld, but because they have not yet discovered the wealth that is already theirs. Like someone using an extraordinarily rare and valuable pen without knowing its worth — the moment you are told what it truly is, what it is worth, and whose it was, your relationship with it changes entirely. The pen has not changed. Your knowledge of it has. And that knowledge changes everything.

Part Six: Working the Word — Faith That Acts, Prayer That Receives

Knowledge of your inheritance is essential, but it must be activated. The word of God is not merely information to be stored — it is a living seed that produces what it describes when it is planted in faith and tended by action. The word of God has the ability to produce what it talks about. But it must be worked. It must be believed. It must be acted upon.

Jesus gave us the clearest statement of how faith and prayer work together to produce results:

Mark 11:24  Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

Believe that you receive when you pray. Not believe that you will receive at some future point. Believe that you receive — present tense, at the moment of prayer. The moment you pray in faith, the transaction is complete in the spirit realm. What remains is the manifestation in the natural realm, and that manifestation follows the confession and action of faith. When you believe you receive, you act accordingly. You speak accordingly. You carry yourself accordingly. And your actions and words create the conditions for the manifestation to come.

The Apostle Paul, strengthened in the inner man by the Spirit of God, declared the identity of every believer who walks in this reality:

Romans 8:37  Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

More than conquerors. Not just survivors. Not just those who eventually manage to overcome. More than conquerors — those who go into the battle already knowing the outcome, because they stand in a victory that was secured before the battle was ever joined. This is the posture of the believer who is working the word.

Part Seven: The Purpose of Your Success — Changing Lives

Everything God gives you — knowledge, prosperity, strength, wisdom, influence — is not merely for your own enjoyment. It is given with a purpose that extends far beyond you. The Son of Man Himself declared the reason He came:

Luke 19:10  For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

He came to seek and save. And He has sent us with the same mission. The fullness of your blessing, the extent of your inheritance, the dimensions of your success — all of it is ultimately in service of reaching people with the gospel and permanently changing their lives. True success is not measured by what you accumulate for yourself. It is measured by how many lives you have permanently, spiritually, and practically transformed.

God wants you to be so fully blessed, so thoroughly equipped, so completely established in your identity and inheritance, that you become a source of life for the people around you. Not a reservoir that hoards — but a river that flows. Not one who needs constant propping up, but one who has been so built up on the inside that they can go out and build up others.

Conclusion: Work the Word and Watch It Produce

The word of God is not passive. It is alive, active, and sharper than any two-edged sword. When it is planted in good soil — a heart that believes, a life that acts on what it believes — it will produce. It cannot fail to produce. Because it is the word of the One who spoke the universe into existence. The word that said “Let there be light” has not lost any of its creative power. That same word, working in your life, will produce what it talks about.

Know what belongs to you. Know that all things that pertain to life and godliness have already been given to you through Christ. Know that you are Abraham’s seed and an heir according to the promise. Know that the life of God — eternal, indestructible, abundant — is deposited in your spirit. Know that you are peculiar, chosen, royal, and crowned with glory and honour. And then pray with that knowing. Speak with that knowing. Act with that knowing. Give with that knowing. Serve with that knowing.

Work the word. Prove it in your life. And it will not disappoint you — because the word of God is the most reliable reality in existence. Heaven and earth will pass away, but the word of God will never pass away. Stake your life on it, and watch what it produces.